So he’d let them—her?—go. And maybe he’d started drinking a bit too much from time to time, but then, who could blame him?
Soon after that, he’d left the military and gone to work in private security, then private and corporate investigation, and finally opened his own firm. Once he was well and truly established with his first million in the bank and his first mention in Forbes, he’d actually put his skills to work and tracked them down after all.
Them. Valerie and his ten-year-old son, Theo.
She’d returned to West Texas to live with her family until the baby was born, and a few years after that married a lawyer from Dallas.
As far as Reid could tell, they were happy, and his son was being treated well. Whether or not Theo knew the attorney wasn’t his real father, Reid wasn’t sure. And unless there was a good reason to move in and shake up the boy’s life, Reid had no intention of telling him.
But that didn’t mean Reid didn’t think about him. He wondered if his son liked science or sports, was into dinosaurs or train sets. And what his life would have been like if Valerie had stuck around and put up a white picket fence with him instead of running off to do as much with another man.
Not that it mattered, except for the fact that he now found himself in almost an identical situation with Juliet.
Reid’s chest tightened as his thoughts and emotions from the past mixed and mingled with the present until he had trouble drawing a breath.
This time around, however, there was another man already in Juliet’s life. Another man who could, conceivably, be the father of her unborn child.
Although, to be perfectly honest, Reid didn’t think so. He believed Juliet when she said the baby was his. Otherwise she would have gone through with her wedding to the obnoxious jerk.
Why make her life more complicated for herself than it already was when she could have kept her mouth shut and simplified things exponentially? The first word he would have heard about Juliet having a child was if the birth announcement ended up in the paper.
So that was one problem that needed to be dealt with. Damned if he’d have Paul Harris butting in or causing trouble down the road. If Juliet truly was pregnant and the baby was his, then the ex-fiancé would have to go. On his own or with a bit of persuasion, Reid didn’t particularly care which.
The next order of business would be what to do about the pregnancy.
Initially, the decision would be Juliet’s, he knew that. No matter how he felt or what option she chose, he would have to take a step back for that one and let her do whatever she was going to do.
If she decided to keep it, though, he would have to make a few decisions of his own. Like whether to suggest they stay together and try to give the child a stable, two-parent home. Or go the separate homes/single parent/shared custody route.
One thing was for certain. He wasn’t going to walk away this time. He wasn’t going to let another woman give birth to his child without letting him be part of that child’s life.
This time he would be involved.
This time he would be a real father, no matter what it took.
* * *
Juliet stared at her reflection in the mirror above the vanity of Reid’s upstairs bathroom. It was a nice-size room: not too big and not too small, with cream-colored walls, oak trim and dark green ivy accents.
She wasn’t surprised at the stylish décor that was neither too masculine nor too feminine. It matched the rest of the town house, which had also been professionally restored, furnished and decorated.
Thanks to a bit of makeup and the passing of her latest bout of morning sickness, she actually looked fresh and presentable. It was to Reid’s credit that he’d made today’s appointment with the doctor of his choice for early afternoon, after he knew any trouble she had with nausea would have passed.
He’d also put her in a room at the opposite end of the hall from his and stocked the downstairs refrigerator with clear soda and the cupboards with crackers, cream of wheat and soups he thought would be bland enough for her sensitive stomach.
As hosts went, he was being a kind and extremely accommodating one.
Why, then, was she such a knot of twisted, writhing nerve endings?
She’d been on pins and needles ever since he ordered her to collect her belongings and get in the car so he could drive her back to New York. But being under the same roof with him with so much tension simmering between them made her feel like a goldfish in a very small bowl. Staying in her room most of the time was akin to hiding inside her tiny plastic castle.
Now, though, she was dressed and ready not only to brave the outside world but to accompany Reid downtown to an unfamiliar doctor’s office, where she would presumably be poked and prodded until tests either confirmed or denied that she was, indeed, pregnant.